XVIII.

It was their last session. For real. Draco had missed their third scheduled one. Draco had to come, he simply had to, and Harry knew that it was time to leave their Healer/patient dynamic behind.

Harry shifted his weight nervously.

Still, he did not know what to expect. Draco had been furious and probably would still be. Harry needed to make a good impression. At the very least, they had to meet again for him to apologize. The end of their story could not have come so suddenly after Harry's realization that he wanted it to go on.

Hermione had been right, damn her.

Draco knocked on his door at precisely five minutes after their scheduled time, giving Harry just the window needed to start wearing a tread into the floor from his pacing.

"Good evening," Harry said, hands releasing his hair. He'd probably tangled it all. Draco would criticize him, for sure.

Instead of that, Harry was faced with a stubborn silence and melancholy glare.

"Could you extinguish the fire, please?" Draco asked wearily. "You didn't have to be this way."

Harry looked over, noting that the flames were burning high after the floo call he'd made upon his arrival that evening. His heart was pounding loudly as he put the fire out, shame burrowing into him.

"It was an accident," he tried to explain.

"Of course."

They started off on a bad note, to say the least.

Through Harry's perseverance, about halfway to the end of the appointment, Draco seemed to relax a little bit, receptive and responding to the questions Harry posed and the instructions he gave Draco.

"How are you feeling with half the dose of calming draught?" Harry asked, glancing up from his notes. Draco liked it more when he didn't stare intently as he was answering, so Harry looked back down.

There was a squirmy pause, as though Draco was trying to figure out how to get out of answering the question.

Harry's eyes rose again. Draco was frowning.

"I sped it up," he said.

Harry cocked his head.

"I did it twice as fast as you… recommended." Draco clarified. "I actually feel horrible."

Eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, Harry asked, "When was your last dose?"

"The morning after we went out for drinks."

Harry did a mental count of the days, wonder causing him to do the calculation again, just in case. "Are you trying to tell me," he began, but was cut off.

"It doesn't mean anything," were Draco's quick words, though the resolute stare he was giving the floor told Harry more than he could have said with words.

"You're telling me that the 84 hour grace period ended conveniently during our dinner, putting you firmly in magical-chemical withdrawal?"

Draco shrugged. "It isn't true."

"It isn't true that you shouted at me?" Harry raised his eyebrows. "That you were rather unreasonable?"

Draco's shocked expression stopped Harry's rhetoric. "Unreasonable? You pushed me to the ground. It was an attack."

A grimace grew as Harry realized that it was true. "I had good intentions!"

Draco rolled his eyes. "You were unnecessarily aggressive."

That much was probably true. Harry stood, unable to contain himself. So many emotions were coursing through him. It was probably better than any kind of potion could make him feel.

"I do apologize for being so sudden," Harry said, "but you started it."

"Childish glee is the epitome of Healer behaviour, is it?"

Harry laughed. "No, but I wonder if you might accept another offer to go for drinks?"

The pin-drop silence that fell over the room made Harry want to run. The answer did not come quickly, as he had hoped, but Draco did stand and come to face Harry before the empty, quiet fireplace.

"It's coincidence. I was going to walk out either way," he said. Their bodies were close together, exchanging heat—though maybe it was an aftereffect of the fireplace's flames. Harry itched to touch Draco's smooth skin as he considered the invitation. "I meant what I said."

He eyed Harry as though expecting anger. Harry hardly flinched, leaning against his desk so that his body was perpendicular to Draco's, a little bit shorter as well. He turned his face slowly, shocked to find himself so close to the expanse of skin just below Draco's ear.

"Draco," Harry whispered, watching the flinch when his warm breath hit that soft skin. "The decisions we made are behind us, but we've both moved forward. Merlin, I'd love to argue with you to make up those years we wasted with that rivalry. You're the only one who could ever challenge me."

Draco turned to face Harry, eyes wide, mirth dancing in them. "Not even Voldemort?"

Harry's expression turned smug. "Not in intelligence."

"Don't flatter yourself, Potter." But the space between them was so insignificant that Harry couldn't even take the insult as an insult.

The rise and fall of Draco's throat as he swallowed nervously overtook Harry.

"Drinks, you said? Perhaps on Saturday."

Harry's fingertips were a hair's breadth from Draco when he froze, remembering that he could not touch. Too far. He'd given too much away.

Draco didn't seem to have noticed.

"I hate you," Draco whispered, startling Harry so that the pads of his fingertips skimmed over the skin he'd been eyeing for so long. Draco leaned into the touch, Harry thought. Minuscule though the motion may have been, he wasn't imagining it.

"And I hate you," Harry returned, fervour in his voice because it was true. "I've never hated anyone more."

Draco gasped as Harry's fingers trailed behind his neck, to the hairline. Harry, applying minimal pressure because he could hardly think, pulled him closer. Draco's chin dipped, lips just out of reach of Harry's. They stood like that, frozen, for an indeterminate amount of time, barely touching.

Dreams had never felt this real, but Harry had to be dreaming. It was perfection, that moment. The heartbeat beneath his fingertips and the one under his skin seemed to be moving together. Every muscle screamed. He burned.

Harry was not the one who made the final move, and once it was made, nothing else fell into place. Everything was felt rather than planned.

The moment their lips touched, it was like a buzzing that Harry hadn't noticed went completely silent. He was removed from everything he knew, falling into sensation. Draco, skilled with his tongue as Harry had known he would be, teased his. They moved closer, bodies pressing together, hard plane against hard plane.

Oh fuck, they were kissing, well and truly touching in a way that could not be twisted into fighting. And Draco was giving back what Harry was giving. It was incredible.

They didn't even breathe, concentrated so fully. Their noses pressed together as their lips moved, Draco's hand finally tangling itself in Harry's hair. Smooth moisture coated Harry's mouth, and they parted occasionally with a soft sound, together again so soon afterwards that the separation was forgotten immediately.

Reality melted around Harry, forcing him into a timeless existence where all he wanted was more of Draco.

A sting shot through him as Draco pulled at his bottom lip with quick teeth, pressing a grin against Harry in a way that made heat strike through him. Harry was pushed against his desk, the hard surface digging against his arse as he pressed back against Draco. The pressure was stifling, the air heavy and thick.

A very different kind of thickness was pressing against his thigh, pent-up frustration that Harry could relate to very well.

Part of the excitement was the location, part of it was Draco, but most of it was the overwhelming feeling of success that was coursing through him as frantically as his own blood. Emotion was blinding, the friction of his cock against layers of fabric nothing more than an unsatisfying ghost of sensation, but the sounds Draco was making as he worked his hips against Harry's frame fell on ravenous ears.

Harry pushed back, feeling dirty and used and like he absolutely hated Draco Malfoy, and then he decided he really hated Draco Malfoy when the aforementioned shuddered against him, spewing profanity into his shoulder, the vibrations running up his skin to his neck, echoing inside of him.

It was the sight of Draco, red-lipped and unfocused, flushed and smirking, reaching one hand up to Harry's throat and the other down to Harry's cock that had him coming with a single squeeze of both hands.

He gasped for breath as heat spilled from him, leaving him hungry for one more kiss, one more touch, one more moment of mindless pleasure. Draco, evil by definition, stepped out of Harry's reach with the filthiest smug look that Harry had ever seen.

"I've never…" Draco said, somewhat out of breath, "not with a Healer. Salazar, not with you."

Harry flushed. He couldn't form a full sentence until Draco had cast the appropriate spells to clean them up, and even then it was hard to remember what he wanted to say.

"We shouldn't have done that," Harry said.

"All the more reason to have done it."

"It isn't right," Harry repeated, though the tingling he was left with told him that it was the rightest thing he'd ever done. "I'm your Healer!"

"Then you'll have to fix me faster."

Harry closed his eyes against the suggestive tone, but he couldn't resist.

"Let's work on some contact exercise," he suggested, finding it impossible to resist something when Draco was so receptive and eager. "I'll stand right beside you—"

Draco got into position, but pulled Harry just as he was going to step close to Draco's side. "I was thinking… perhaps you should stand behind me."

Harry's heart rate spiked again, and the last fifteen minutes of their scheduled time were the longest of his life—and the hardest.